


known by night

by grim_lupine



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Porn Battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:06:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grim_lupine/pseuds/grim_lupine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When night falls, Raven drops everything - her clothes, her skin, her soft, innocuous manner - and she finds Charles; waiting, as she knew he would be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	known by night

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the porn battle; prompts: secrets, blue, pink

-

\--

Raven's older than she looks. She thinks Charles forgets that, sometimes. _Raven_ forgets that sometimes, so why wouldn't he? By some accident of genes, she looks young and fresh and _young_ , the dependant to Charles's affectionate, protective condescension; by day that's the face she wears, the face that throws her in with the rest of the 'kids' instead of where she belongs: at Charles's side, his right hand.

It's easy to slip into forgetting, when she's pink-cheeked and blond-haired and they treat her like a child, when Charles's eyes slip over the skin she's wearing like he's forgotten there's anything else to her. It's easy to play along. 

When night falls, Raven drops everything - her clothes, her skin, her soft, innocuous manner - and she finds Charles; waiting, as she knew he would be. This is theirs, two misfits who found each other young and didn't quite know what to call it; she's Charles's sister to those who know them now, but she's played his wife more times than she could count on both hands, and he calls her his oldest friend, but Raven watches the soft rounding of his lips around the words and remembers biting them raw, just the night before. There's no word for what they are to each other, beyond _everything_. Raven can feel them growing apart, or maybe just expanding to include others, shedding their former insularity; but this is theirs, Raven pushing Charles back on the bed and sliding under the covers beside him, blue and naked and unafraid. 

They learned each other like this years before, young and nervous and caught up in each other, and this is how Raven has reminded him ever since:

Charles may forget who she is when she looks like someone he needs to protect; and Raven may forget, herself; but Raven knows the taste of Charles's mouth, and the feel of his fingers skidding down her spine, strong and pale against the blue of her skin, and Raven has years' worth of being the ear to Charles's woes and the arms to his nighttime fears, and she is _not a child_.

It's only at times like this that Raven considers letting Charles back into her mind; times when Charles is pliant, and quiet like he's listening, and cups her breasts and touches her with something between reverence and familiarity. But Raven knows that tomorrow morning, Charles will smile at her cheerfully across the breakfast table and send her off to play with the others while he does real work with Erik, and Raven doesn't want _that_ Charles to see the fingerprints he's left all over her mind.

It's not all his fault. Raven doesn't know who she is in the morning light, so she can't expect Charles to know _for_ her. They don't talk about it - where would they begin? - and so Raven presses with her body and not her words, on these nights: bites the curve of Charles's neck, high and vivid where he can't hide it, though she knows he'll simply direct everyone's attention away from it tomorrow, a slight and meaningless mental interference that he sees as innocuous, and so tomorrow, Raven will be the only one who knows it's there. 

Charles runs his fingers down Raven's throat, looks her right in the eyes and murmurs, "My dear," and Raven doesn't look away when she swings her legs over his body and sinks down upon him, puts her hands on his chest and holds him still with little effort, because here she never hides her strength. 

They move together as only two people who have years of knowing each other's bodies can: the sinuous flex of Raven's hips drawing gasps from Charles's throat; his clever, graceful hands stroking Raven's stomach, sliding lower, teasing the wet join of where he's inside her until Raven clenches around him and shakes, fingernails drawing blood from his skin. 

After Charles has spilled himself, he turns them over, spreads Raven open and ducks his head and licks her clean, until she's quivering beneath his mouth and tugging his hair sharply, until she almost gives in to the urge to free her lip from between her teeth and cry aloud - let everyone know exactly what they're doing, _exactly_ who she is to Charles. But she doesn't, and Charles takes her over the edge once more, and when he raises his head and looks at her frankly, his mouth and chin gleaming wet and his eyes hot and open, Raven feels - _seen_. 

She doesn't stay, when they're done. She never does. Neither of them sleep easily, Raven with the twitching energy under her skin that never subsides, Charles with the voices of thousands rattling his brain; and so she kisses Charles's mouth softly, one more goodbye in a line of too many to count. Even as his fingers rest on her cheek, she shifts back under his hands and doesn't look at his face when she straightens up and leaves his bed, afraid of what she might find there.

Charles says nothing as she goes.

\--

-


End file.
